It’s time to apply for holiday jobs and work experience opportunities. You look at the experience and achievements listed on your CV and frown. Will it be enough to get you an interview? You sigh and wish there were a few more activities for you to write about… But how do you get the kind of CV that employers find irresistible, and how do you find the motivation to build up that experience?
1. Write your Current CV
The first thing you will need to do is draft your own CV. Your resume should be well structured, clearly written and a good representation of yourself. For the purpose of this article, we’ll call this your ‘present CV’. It will contain all your achievements, extra-curricular activities and relevant work experience to date.
2. Write your ‘Future CV’
The second step, and probably the most important, is to create what I call your ‘future CV’. The future CV is a guesstimate CV that covers where you think you will be 12 months down the track.
Your future CV contains all the experience and achievements listed on your current CV, but also includes the achievements, extra-curricular activities, and work experience you hope to gain in the next year.
It is crucial to approach this as you would a real CV. Don’t simply make a to-do list; make it presentable. Add a bit of detail, even if you’re not entirely sure of the exact details of each activity/role you will be doing.
Then print off your future CV and post it somewhere visible.
3. Get that Experience
The third step is the hardest as it requires you to act on your intentions. Now that you’ve written down some realistic goals for the next 12 months, there are no excuses for not getting that extra experience or getting involved in a club or committee at uni.
Hopefully at the end of your busy year of work experience and extra-curricular activities, your future CV will be your new present CV. You should only have to make minor adjustments to your original future CV to align with your current achievements. Then repeat this process and prepare for the next 12 months.
The future CV exercise is a fantastic way to plan and motivate your career development. In a few years you’ll be able to look back over your collection of CVs and see how far you’ve come!
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